UKC

Will Gadd's latest Blog posts regarding when you should or shouldn't clip your anchor in a multipitch situation to prevent a Fall Factor (FF)2 raises a few questions.

...clipping the top piece in an anchor often falls into the same, “I’m being safer because I’ve done something” when in fact I think it’s often more dangerous than not clipping the top piece.
http://willgadd.com/anchor-clipping/

Who here is guilty of protecting your belay but not protecting the belayer i.e. yourself?

Who here has actually experienced either a FF2 (either as climber or belayer) or a fall directly on to the first runner off a hanging belay?

Who wants to see a video showing exactly what will happen if you don't protect the belayer?

youtube.com/watch?v=1CbFpRPYDm0& (apologies for the hillbilly music)

The whole concept of clipping the top-most runner on a belay is something I hadn't considered a problem because I have been guilty of following the advice of others I considered more experienced without question (a bad idea in some cases).

I don't recall ever being shown or even told what can happen if you do clip the anchor just that - "you don't want a FF2 occurring, get them clipped in to a higher peice asap" (Actually, looking at that clip I think I'd rather not, thanks!).

I certainly knew what could happen but had not considered it a real problem as I make (some of) my anchors ready for an upward pull (I hadn't considered quite how forceful though). Looking at the video of a FF 1.5 it's quite apparent that not being prepared for that scenario can have dire consequences.
Even Petzl do not mention the possibility of the belayer getting yanked: Before setting off on the next pitch, always make sure a redirect is clipped as high as possible on the belay. If the leader falls before clipping the first bolt on the route, this redirect allows for the correct operation of braking belay devices like the REVERSO. Attention: this redirect reduces the fall factor, but increases the potential force on the belay anchors. A redirect on the belay station is for multi-pitch sport climbing, with bolted anchors. If the anchor doesn't seem totally solid, you should avoid this type of set-up.
http://www.petzl.com/en/outdoor/news/events-0/2009/06/19/petzl-roctrip-rope...
Perhaps this is a bad example, but looking around the internet, there does seem to be a distinct lack of advice regarding the potential for a good old yanking should your climber fall at an inopportune moment.


How do you prepare for such a scenario?

There is an argument for belaying directly off your anchor (only where the anchors are able to take a load in excess of 7kn) though this practice is not without contention (there's a good discussion on here about the practice: http://www.chockstone.org/forum/Forum.asp?Action=Display&ForumID=6&... though I suspect a lot of these people didn't read/listen to the caveats in the video of the OP - they really don't like the canadians!).
It is also worth reiterating that the time and place to do this need to be assessed and is probably not a good idea on a size 1 wobbly nut on friable rock! Further to that point, due to the relative lack of mid grade steep/long routes with hanging belays in the uk where this scenario could take place, it's not so much of a problem here (either that or we are just so good at not falling off our belays like these continentals). What is a problem is us Brits going off to the continent in search of something more adventurous and applying our quite specific way of safeguarding ourselves on climbs in the UK without actually thinking about what we are doing, thinking "it'll be ok because it's what we always do".

I believe climbers tend to follow instruction from more experienced climbers without questioning the reasoning. Climbers are not alone in this fatal flaw of human behaviour - to do as they have been told. (Google Stanley Milgram's experiments for evidence). So, it is in our interest to question everything we do as climbers; following an evidence-based approach to any advice is certainly advisable.

I, for one, will research anything new shown to me because ultimately, my life is important; I have a lot of things I want to do! You should do too.

This is probably not new to most climbers out there, but I think it's a point that's worth bringing forward once every so often like all the other safety threads that crop up with monotonous frequency (bowlines springs to mind).

In reply to higherclimbingwales:

This is a very tricky scenario. I heard from very experience people that they anchor themselves with 1 or 2 meters of rope below the anchor in order to have some space to travel upwards in a fall and not get yanked into the wall.

For me personally, this is just another reason to belay with a auto-lock device such as Grigri or Alpine Up: they catch FF2 falls and they lock if the belayer looses the control of the rope.

In reply to Eciton:

Yes, but GriGris of course only work with single ropes and climbing multipitch on single ropes is a bizarre American custom

Slighlty more seriously, an autolocking device potentially increases the impact force on the gear, which might be a concern in some situations.

In reply to AlanLittle:

There's nothing potential about the increase in force from using an autolocking device.

In reply to AlanLittle: According to Mammut their "Smart" allows a small amount of rope through the device creating a more dynamic belay.

In reply to Eciton:

Interestingly, in this report it was noted that increasing the amount the belayer lifts does not reduce the amount of force on the top anchor any more than a small lift does.

http://user.xmission.com/~tmoyer/testing/Simulation_of_Climbing_and_Rescue_... (page 29)

In reply to higherclimbingwales: In a similar vein, looking at the videos of the FF1.5 falls the main thing that struck me is how much energy the belayer is absorbing when being yanked up. That, combined with a non-autolocking device probably contributes considerably to reducing the force on the top runner (which is the gear you really don't want to fail) and also on the falling climber when they decelerate rapid at the end of the rope.

Just wondering if the yanking can have a purpose... as long as you've planned for the possibility of it happening I guess!

In reply to higherclimbingwales:
That makes sense I guess - it's the acceleration of the belayer that absorbs the energy, rather than the distance travelled

In reply to higherclimbingwales:

Whilst not wishing to contradict Will Gadd, does anyone really think that the main purpose of clipping the anchor is to reduce the fall factor!? Clipping the anchor will significantly increase the force on it if the leader falls without placing gear.

Surely clipping the anchor is about reducing the braking effort required from the belayer in a factor 2 fall or am I wrong?

In reply to jon_bee:

The belayer doesn't absorb the force (in the top runner at least) according to the above link. The falling climber is decellerated by the rope that has pulled on the top piece before the momentum of the climber is then tranferred down the other strand which pulls the belayer up. I think the force is absorbed through friction.

In reply to higherclimbingwales:

It's interesting... but not what what the person you quoted was getting at. Adding distance between the belay, thus the piece clipped lowers the chances of a hard slam into the wall. Being pulled upwards rather than into the wall. Obviously if you are low enough below the belay you can lower the fall factor considerably. This could also be a solution. The example of a 4 m fall can be lowered to less than ff1 if you are 5m below the belay.

In reply to FreshSlate: Decreasing the fall factor does not decrease the peak force. A FF2 will only generate between 5-6Kn whereas a FF1.5 can create a force on the top most anchor in excess of 7kn.

In reply to higherclimbingwales:

Yes there is. If the device is attached to a soft, squishy, movable/moving belayer then the braking force of the device itself may not be playing a vey large role in the final impact force as felt by climber / top piece. If you're belaying directly off the anchor or off a firmly tied-down belayer than it clearly does.

In reply to FreshSlate:

Exactly!

In reply to AlanLittle:

Maybe, but there are also disadvantages of catching a hard fall using a tube like device. This has been discussed before. See this http://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php?t=547784

In reply to AlanLittle:

On reflection, might I be extrapolating too much from sport belaying technque, where a soft catch is much more a function of what the belayer does than what device s/he is using? It's just as possible to give a hard catch with an ATC as it is to give a soft catch with a grigri.

In other words, even on a mutlipitch stance, if the belayer is (somewhat) free to move, and the braking force of an ATC is sufficient to move the belayer, then isn't that going to mitigate any difference in braking force between devices?

On a related note, people in Europe routinely belay directly off the anchor using a munter, one of the hardest braking of all "devices", and yet their anchors don't routinely fail even when they are dodgy looking Dolomite pegs. This leads me to wonder if concerns about protecting the gear against impact force may be exaggerated.

In reply to higherclimbingwales:

Yes, thinking it through I can see that the top runner load isn't really effected. But the belayer moving (which must absord force, or they wouldn't move) should moderate the deceleration force on the falling climber. I guess how important that is depends on the fall distance (ie the speed of the falling climber), rather than the fall factor though. So it may not be significant, certainly not in the original situation being discussed.

In reply to jon_bee: As I understand it, the force on the top runner is applied before either the belayer or climber feel the jolt of catching said climber (0.2sec on top runner vs 0.5 for belayer) so the force on the top runner is independent of the amount of air time the belayer gets.

In reply to higherclimbingwales:
Yup - so peak load on the top runner occurs before the belayer moves. I guess I'm interested in whether the movement of the belayer lowers the peak (deceleration) force on the falling climber. I'm not sure those studies linked illustrate that or not... more graph staring required

In reply to jon_bee: They are two different questions I suppose. I think we might be getting slightly off-track from the OP, as interesteing as it all is. I wish I had a drop tower and a dynamometer!

In reply to higherclimbingwales:

One strategy to avoid a FF2 is for a leader, at the end of their pitch, is to continue climbing and place the first runner on the next pitch. They then return down to their stance, build a belay, and belay the second on the long strand. The second arrives, and irrespective of who leads next, they can not factor 2.

In reply to Jonny2vests:

True, they cannot have a FF2 fall, but that doesn't stop them from yanking you up should they fall.

In reply to higherclimbingwales:

Well yeah, but that's a pretty everyday kind of fall. Not sure what your point is? If a belayer wants to avoid being pulled up, they should place appropriate gear.

In reply to Jonny2vests:

I guess I wanted to see who, when building a belay actually does that. I never used to as I banked on my multi-directional anchors to stop me but this only goes so far to prevent a slam into the rock.

In reply to higherclimbingwales:
http://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/page.php?id=4318

Some thoughts and suggestions...

In reply to higherclimbingwales:

So a 4m fall fall factor 2 and a 4m fall factor 0.8 are the same force?

In reply to FreshSlate:

The top runner in a less than factor 2 fall gets double the impact force, minus friction, so about 1.6 in reality. In a F2 there is, by definition, no runner, no pulley effect, the anchors get 1x the impact force. Whether the belayer managed to keep control of the rope is more of a concern in a factor 2.

In reply to FreshSlate:

depends where you are taking you force readings from. If you take the force at the last runner (or in the case of a FF2, the belay masterpoint), then yes, the force at that point can potentially be the same (I don't have any hard figures to back that up). The force on a runner is usually a product of the force in each strand of rope.

In reply to higherclimbingwales: So if gear holds a certain weight climber it will always hold them no matter what the fall factor? If the fall factor has no bearing on force on the top piece. In that case we need not worry about the strength of the belay (in terms of the greater fall factor) but the forces on the belayer?

In reply to Jonny2vests:

+1

This is the obvious solution.

Also less faffing changing belay plate orientation and less effort to take in the rope.

In reply to higherclimbingwales:

Is that true?

In reply to higherclimbingwales: What's an auto locking device ?

In reply to jezb1:

poor terminoligy on my behalf. I mean a semi-auto belay device such as a gri gri!

In reply to higherclimbingwales:

Did you read Gadd's follow up posts to this stuff? He redacts some of what he said in post 1, and talks a lot about the use of upward pulls etc.

In reply to Donnie:

Yes, using a gri gri type device increases the force on the top runner, hence why they are not a good idea for Trad belaying.

In reply to Donnie:

There are no definitive tests, but its seems likely that something like a Grigri will transfer more force to the top runner. The real question is, is it significant? More and more top end climbers a resorting to grigris on trad routes where the chances of failing gear are less than the chances of dropping a leader.

In reply to Jonny2vests:

Taken from http://www.geir.com/mythbuster.html

A breif internet seach provided no numbers to back up this idea in climbing, so Jeff and I headed out once again. After climbing up 40 feet on a sport climb with a heavy, clunky industial dynamometer strapped to my back, I took repeated 10-foot falls and measured the maximum force on the bolt with each fall. After five falls were caught on the GriGri and five falls were caught using an ATC, we repeated the test, this time falling from a bolt closer to the ground (20 feet).

In both cases, the force exerted on the top piece was significantly higher when using a GriGri than with an ATC. When the 10 foot falls were arrested in the first test (falling from 40 feet), the average maximum force on the bolt was 820 pounds with the GriGri as opposed to 435 pounds with the ATC. With less rope out (falling from 20 feet), the force exerted on the top piece was higher, although interestingly, the difference between the two devices was smaller: the average for the GriGri was 1030 pounds while the average for the ATC was 900 pounds.

In reply to higherclimbingwales: It would be interesting to see some other data on the matter.

In reply to higherclimbingwales: ah, an assisted breaking device. Just teasing!

In reply to higherclimbingwales:

Just a few thoughts:
1. belaying off the anchors is hard to rig unless the anchor is in-situ and with a trad belay there is a strong logic in protecting the anchor at all costs - i.e. belaying from the second's harness.
2. belaying off the anchors with a belay plate is not something with a long history and hence no good field trials.
3. belaying off the anchors with a munter has a long history
4. belaying with munters on double ropes is a right pain
5. to create a high FF fall you need to fall off and you need a clean fall - this suggests hard and steep and possibly a hanging belay.
6. hard and steep and a hanging belay is not the place you want the second fighting the ropes through double munters, or a hard-to-feed belay plate strapped to the anchors whilst uncoiling the ropes from whatever they have been coiled over at the belay.

This suggests that direct belaying is best off bolted anchors with a single rope and a munter.

Munters are great if you don't plan on falling off much, not so good with hard and steep.

This suggests a gri gri is about as good. In that even if you do get pulled up, you should still hold the fall.

Yes, it won't be any good for double ropes, but then, double munters is no good and the plate on the anchor thing not field tested.

In reply to higherclimbingwales:

Yeah, that guy does some interesting stuff, I'd forgotten about that test and I concede that it's a good first approximation (not sure about shooting belay plates though, that's just comedy). Someone should try it on a test rig, Jim Titt a while back seemed to think that test came with its own problems.

In reply to higherclimbingwales:

Lots of interesting stuff here. A long time ago I used always to seek out an anchor that would take an upward pull when belaying mid-climb on a multi-pitch. Often a right pain needing opposing nuts to create. Then I noticed that very few other people I climbed with bothered. If there was no obvious upward pull anchor (eg peg or thread) then they would rely on downward pull anchors only and stand or sit well below. Since then, that's what I've done too.

However, being a cautious sort of fellow, and being aware of the possibility of being pulled up sharply by my leader falling on the next pitch, I've often chosen one anchor a substantial way above the stance - up to 4 metres. I've then encouraged the leader to clip that as the first runner - often in fact I've taken the only placement! To my mind that clearly reduces the fall factor. Have I been mistaken all these years?

In reply to Martin Hore:

Not at all, but reducing the fall factor is not the issue really - it's preventing a potentially violent slam into the wall (in a sport climbing scenario). In a trad environment it's about protecting the belay but you still need to protect the belayer. Given you have more choice (usually) about where your anchors go, you can generally do this (though I am still awaiting people to post if they do).

In reply to higherclimbingwales:

I think a lot of lead falls fall onto the violent slam category because belayers counter intuitively don't give enough slack and leaders are forced to trace an arc rather than baby bounce.

In reply to Jonny2vests:

Yes, but that normally only seems to be talked about in a single pitch sport climbing context, where the belayer is on the ground and (usually) has room to move, so a hard catch is just down to incompetence/inexperience.

On multipitch belays the belayer generally has much less freedom of manoeuvre, but reducing inmpact force on the anchors is sometimes a concern if the anchors aren't 100%. In which case I'm not sure if rigging the belay so that the belayer intentionally gets launched (a little bit) helps or not. Does the top piece still get the full force momentarily, just before the belayer starts to move, or not?

In reply to AlanLittle:

I'm not talking about funky belay techniques, I'm just talking about having a healthy amount of slack out when safe to do so. That's not specific to sport.

In reply to higherclimbingwales:
This thread is probably the most confused discussion on the subject I´ve ever seen!

In reply to jimtitt:

I'm not entirely sure what the subject is to be honest, the OP was like a PhD thesis.

In reply to Jonny2vests:

Soft catch sport belaying has nothing whasoever to do with "a healthy amount of slack", it's done by the belayer moving.

Which (I agree with Jim) has little or no connection with the OP's question - whatever it was - about high factor falls on multipitch belays

In reply to higherclimbingwales:
>

In reply to AlanLittle:

Indeed. Extra slack gives a harder fall (higher peak force).

I assume no one belays with extra slack on trad routes (let alone off a hanging belay).

In reply to Robert Durran:

I can see us getting sidetracked here, but I respectfully disagree, we've had this out before. I'm not talking about soft catch techniques, I'm talking about the arc you trace through the air on a fall, which IS a function of how much slack you have out, especially when you're on a hanging stance halfway up some face and obviously talk of moving around is irrelevant.

In reply to Jonny2vests:


Yes, extra slack will change the arc of the fall and seems to reduce the speed with which you might swing back into the rock (although many people seem to use it at climbing walls to ensure a high impact speed with the floor). However, it will increase the peak tension in the rope and put extra force on runners and therefore is really only appropriate on sports climbs.

Would the video not have been more balanced if it showed the fall directly onto the belayer's plate as well with the same tyres?

In reply to Robert Durran:

I think the extra force induced by something like an extra foot of rope is unlikely to be significant. Plus I think travelling some crazy arc because you're falling on a tight rope is more likely to ping runners. Obviously each situation should be judged on its own merits, but I don't think it's irrelevant for trad at all.

In reply to Jonny2vests:

I'm sure it's true in practice but I struggle to see from a theoretical viewpoint why extra slack decreases the speed with which you swing into the rock.


I've just revisited my theoretical scribblings from the last time this stuff came up and the elastic, frictionless model (for what it's worth!) gives a greater peak force unless the fall without extra slack would have resulted in the climber ending up below the belayer; extra slack then actuallly decreases the peak force. Such falls are (hopefully) unusual, but, of course, very relevant to the original topic of the thread.

In reply to Robert Durran: I think you load the gear outwards which and that can make it rip on a tight rope. Falling further down as opposed being slammed into the rock is perferable from the climber's point of view also. Depends on the route. If you have moved further out from the piece (i.e climbing an over hang after placing gear) it's a lot more pronounced. This effect can break bones if the belayer does not give enough slack, seen many mess up ankles even at the wall.

In reply to Milesy:

That was probably (correctly) considered too dangerous.

In reply to DubyaJamesDubya: Good point. I'd pay money to see the other side.